On this day in 2018, young up-and-coming manager Jack Ross took charge of Sunderland AFC, which had just been demoted to League One.On this day in 2018, young up-and-coming manager Jack Ross took charge of Sunderland AFC, which had just been demoted to League One.
His first managerial position was at Alloa Athletic, a part-time team. They were demoted to Scottish League One during his first season. His contract was renewed, and his team went on a club-record 10-game winning streak in all competitions to open the season. A team made up of football players who also do plumbing held Celtic to a 0-0 tie for the first 83 minutes at Celtic Park in the Scottish League Cup before conceding two late goals. . That’s an impressive performance for them, given that a year later we were thrashed 5-0 at home by Celtic. Ross left the team in second position in Scottish League One and joined St Mirren.
This is where he would get the attention of Sunderland’s upper management. St Mirren dominated the Scottish Championship in February, leading by 14 points. Ross’ choice to stay at the club, despite speculation linking him to English clubs, paid off: his team won the Scottish Championship, and he was named PFA Scotland Manager of the Year for 2017-18.
Jack Ross, an up-and-coming manager and somewhat of a surprise appointment, was entrusted with rapidly recovering our fortunes and promoting us from League One in the first instance. Sadly, this was not to be. We had a habit of drawing 1-1 throughout our first season together.
Watching his team, which had some of the best players we’d had since our relegation to the third tier, was often soul-destroying. Losing Josh Maja’s free-scoring goals in January and replacing him with Will Grigg for silly money, against Ross’ preferences, limited his attacking options. His 16-month tenure will be remembered for the anguish of the two Wembley defeats, as well as a truly astonishing number of draws (27).
People with faded and patchy memories from League One’s assault on our collective psyche might believe we would have some kind of crazy and successful hybrid manager if we could have combined Ross’s apparent defensive stability (we only lost 10 times in his 75 games) with Lee Johnson’s attacking quality. In Johnson’s 78 games, we scored 129 goals and conceded 87, whereas Ross’ 75 games saw us score 124 and concede 73. Ross and Johnson’s approaches appeared to be diametrically opposed in my memory, although both were eventually misguided and unsuccessful. Neither was worse than Phil Parkinson.
